egular things. Both these men had agreed a moment ago
that the wind should be on the right; now they disagreed, one thinking
that Hancock's house was to the left, the other to the right, their
ideas as to the direction of the Buford ranch being equally at
variance. The horses decided it, breaking once again down wind, and
striking a low-headed, sullen trot, as though they would out-march the
storm. And so the two argued, and so they rode, until at last there
was a lurch and a crash, and they found themselves in rough going, the
sled half overturned, with no fence, no house, no landmark of any sort
visible, and the snow drifting thicker than before. They sprang out
and righted the sled, but the horses doggedly pulled on, plunging down
and down; and they followed, clinging to reins and sled as best they
might.

Either accident or the instinct of the animals had in some way taken
them into rough, broken country, where they would find some shelter
from the bitter level blast. They were soon at the bottom of a flat
and narrow valley, and above them the wind roared and drove ever on a
white blanket that sought to cover them in and under.

"We've lost the trail, but we done the best we could," said Sam
doggedly, going to the heads of the horses, which looked questioningly
back at him, their heads drooping, their breath freezing upon their
coats in spiculae of white.

"Wait!" cried Franklin. "I know this hole! I've been here before.
The team's come here for shelter--"

"Oh, it's the White Woman breaks--why, sure!" cried Sam in return.

"Yes, that's where it is. We're less than half a mile from the house.
Wait, now, and let me think. I've got to figure this out a while."

"It's off there," said Sam, pointing across the _coulee_; "but we can't
get there."

"Yes, we can, old man; yes, we can!" insisted Franklin. "I'll tell
you. Let me think. Good God! why can't I think? Yes--see here, you
go down the bottom of this gully to the mouth of the _coulee_, and then
we turn to the left--no, it's to the right--and you bear up along the
side of the draw till you get to the ridge, and then the house is right
in front of you. Listen, now! The wind's north-west, and the house is
west of the head of the _coulee_; so the mouth is east of us, and that
brings the wind on the left cheek at the mouth of the _coulee_, and it
comes more and more on the right cheek as we turn up the ridge; and
it's on the front half of the right